April 21, 2008
Fresh Thinking From An Internet Crime Expert
Phoenix Police Department Sgt. Frank Kardasz, who heads up the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, offers some fresh thoughts on the legal, systemic, societal and psychological hurdles related to Internet crimes against children in a new paper posted on his blog. He suggests a new law enforcement paradigm that better recognizes such crimes. The document comes on the heels of a recent Senate Judiciary Crime Subcommittee hearing on online child sexual exploitation.
A few of his recommendations:
(1) Citizen Internet users may be willing to designate a dollar from their monthly Internet service bill to be dedicated specifically towards the investigations of crimes against children.
(2) Law enforcement basic training academies need to recognize Internet threats by providing a block of instruction regarding Internet crimes against children for entry-level employees.
(3) Permanent funding sources specifically designated for the purpose of supporting proactive investigative (not citizen education) efforts should be designated. As of 2008, the ICAC program remained an optional congressional earmark with no guarantees of continuation.
(4) ISPs should be legislatively mandated to retain subscriber data and required to respond promptly to legal process from law enforcement.
(5) A small luxury tax on ISPs with the proceeds dedicated toward supporting investigative (not citizen education) efforts to apprehend Internet sex offenders.
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December 06, 2007
Comcast Partners With iKeepSafe
Cable television giant Comcast announced a partnership with the Internet Keep Safe Coalition (iKeepSafe) at the Family Online Safety Institute conference on Thursday. The new relationship will provide parents and teachers with tips, tools and resources to promote cyber safety awareness.
Comcast and iKeepSafe will also partner with state attorneys general, local community groups and with medical and public health organizations to bring a Web safety campaign to communities served by the cable provider.
"The Internet is a great place that can bring people and communities closer together, but we also want to make sure that young people grow up knowing how to use the Internet safely and responsibly," Comcast Vice President Joe Waz said in a press release. Waz also spoke at an afternoon panel at the FOSI conference.
To promote the partnership, Comcast's booth at the summit was staffed by a life-sized McGruff the Crime Dog and Faux Paw the Techno Cat. The characters also roamed around during lunch, posing for pictures with attendees -- including one journalist who will remain nameless (It wasn't me. I'm freaked out by giant, costumed humans.)
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Telecom Exec: Adults Outrun By Web-Savvy Kids
A Verizon Communications executive told a Family Online Safety Institute summit on Thursday that "kids who do risky things in the real world, do risky things in the virtual world" and those who know better, stay away from Web destinations that can get them into trouble.
Nevertheless, Kathryn Brown, the company's senior vice president for public policy, said parents, educators and other adults have an obligation to educate themselves. "We don’t have a lot of experience" in teaching children the do's and don'ts of the Internet age.
"We've equipped our kids pretty well about smoking, drugs [and] drunk driving … because it was part of the experience of our youth and the dangers we saw," Brown said. "We've got to catch up. If we lack experience, we need to learn."
Read more coverage from the FOSI summit in Technology Daily's PM Edition.
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September 04, 2007
GetNetWise To Launch Webinar Series
The Internet Education Foundation, through its GetNetWise initiative, attempted to make the Web a little safer during the late August lull in Washington. The nonprofit group unveiled a new parental education and empowerment campaign featuring weekly interactive webinars.
The series of streaming videos, which will take place on Thursdays at 2 p.m. ET starting later this month, will focus on a variety of filtering, monitoring, and blocking tools that can be employed to aid in protecting children and families online, officials said.
The project aims to "demystify these tools for parents and policymakers alike" on the heels of two recently passed Senate Commerce Committee bills that highlight growing interest in learning more about the latest, greatest Web safety devices.
GetNetWise already hosts the largest searchable database of parental empowerment tools on the Internet, IEF Executive Director Tim Lordan said in a press release. The group hopes to enhance its repository of resources with "more media-rich information," he said.
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